Adobe Creative Suite 4 Announced! After Effects New Features : Adobe After Effects

Adobe have officially announced the Creative Suite 4 group of products, including
After Effects CS4 <http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/aftereffects/?view=topnew> and CS4 Production Premium bundle <http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/creativesuite/production/?view=topnew>.

After Effects CS4 Top New Features <http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/aftereffects/features/?view=topnew>

Live Adobe Photoshop 3D layers import Import Adobe® Photoshop® 3D layers into Adobe After Effects® CS4, move them, animate cameras around them, adjust lighting, and composite them with other elements.

Searchable timelines and projects and easier nested comp navigation Locate any element in a comp or project with the new QuickSearch. Quickly navigate between nested comps with the new Mini-Flowchart.

Compositions exported as layered projects Export compositions as layered, XFL format projects that can be opened and edited in Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional software. Many After Effects assets such as text and Adobe Illustrator® artwork are preserved as vectors.

Integrated workflow for mobile device authoring Select devices in Adobe Device Central and automatically set up an After Effects project that targets those devices, with settings that match the targeted devices and the Render Queue setup to output to the proper codecs and resolutions.

Numerous interface and workflow tweaks Work more efficiently with dozens of user-requested changes, including the new Auto Resolution setting that only renders visible pixels when zooming in and out of a comp view, streamlined memory and multicore processing preferences, and more.

Dynamic Link between Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Soundbooth Using Adobe Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium software, now link Adobe Premiere® Pro sequences to an After Effects composition and After Effects comps to Adobe Soundbooth® with Adobe Dynamic Link.

Independent keyframing of x, y, z values, plus 3D compositing improvements Composite in 3D space more easily: Keyframe x, y, and z position values separately, and use the new unified camera, which makes the After Effects camera tool work more like those in 3D modeling applications.

Cartoon effect Instantly give live footage the look of cell animation. Stylize video by reducing the color palette of a clip and by emphasizing edges.

Mocha for Adobe After Effects from Imagineer Systems Use this powerful 2.5D planar tracking application from Imagineer Systems to track the motion of elements — even in challenging shots where elements move offscreen or where there is motion blur or excessive grain.

XMP metadata for asset intelligence Now retain asset metadata while you work in After Effects. Add new project-, comp-, and layer-level metadata to streamline project tracking, and automate asset auditing and many other tasks.

Also note that Adobe OnLocation now runs natively in Mac OS X as well as Windows.

So, what does everybody think? Did you get the new features you were looking for?

Laaaaame!

AE guys, catch up to the Photoshop guys. You once were groundbreakers, but now you are choking on dust. Please figure out a way to integrate true 3d models, add 3d mesh warping/displacement, and clean up the app.

thanks, and I guess you'll still make a lot of money
maybe next time, right?

Struggling as I am with an 8core mac pro that spits a 45 seconds spinning beachball everytime I try to do an audio preview (with one core clogged and the others idle), I hope that "streamlined memory and multicore processing preferences, and more" would reveal better performance when I'm actually working, and not only during rendering.
waiting tens of seconds to move a keyframe or simply adjust a curve is just unacceptable on a machine so powerful.

I'm tracking early articles on After Effects CS4 on my After Effects Region of Interest blog <http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2008/09/a_few_early_looks_at_new_featu.html>.

Early this afternoon (Pacific Time), I'll post the entire After Effects CS4 Help document. When that's live, I'll post some information here about new features---big and small. I have one post ready for this forum in which I tick through the wishlist items that have been fulfilled by this release.

I know that it's hard to see this before you have the program in your hands, but this version of After Effects is (to me, anyway) less about big new eye-candy features and more about a) hundreds of little tweaks to address pain points and b) new features that make work faster and easier, and c) easier flow of information between After Effects and other applications.

> So, what does everybody think? Did you get the new features you were
> looking for?

No, not unless I missed it. I expected Ultra to be added to After Effects
CS4.

Best,
Christopher

No mention of 64-bit support.

And I agree that AE is seriously lacking in 3D support. 2D rendering of 3D objects doesn't cut it.

There's a list of the big new features in the "New features in After Effects CS4" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS93381227-645C-4241-9D63-215FFD3EDB95.html> section of After Effects CS4 Help on the Web, and you can read about every little change to the UI in the "User interface changes from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS4" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSF288ABA0-1445-4297-ABAC-EBBCAE82E0FB.html> section.

But I thought that all of you who have posted requests to this wishlist might like to get specific responses to some of the items on this list.

First of all, though, I'd like to point out an innovative set of features that I think addresses a request that many of you have made... just not exactly as you asked for it. All of us have wanted a better way to see into and navigate among nested compositions (precompositions). The Composition Mini-Flowchart and Composition Navigator make moving around in a complex project much, much faster and easier. Telling you to see the "Opening and navigating nested compositions" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS83D69D56-FB92-494e-8550-86964070B2E3.html> section isn't going to do this feature set justice. You'll only appreciate how slick this is when you get your hands on it.

Oh, and we reversed the behavior of double-clicking versus Option-double-clicking a precomposition layer: Now double-clicking opens the source composition in the Composition panel, not the precomposition layer in the Layer panel.

Now, on to the specific responses...

David Wigforss:

I completely agree that the graph editor needs work.... Position values
need to be seperated into 3 distinct values that can be adjusted independant
of each other.




Done.
See "Separate dimensions of Position to animate components individually" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSB9C92251-D2B9-49de-8B7E-EE981AD17522.html>.

Mark Weiss:

would like to see XDCam EX import capabilities.




Done.
See "Supported import formats" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSB108BC99-A69B-46c4-86D3-2192805C2AF8a.html>.

AndyClarke:

all effects in 32 bit or float




Not quite all. But more are, including all of the 3D Channel effects, which is a category that really needed the upgrade.
See "Effects and animation presets" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a9d3c597-7bf1a.html>.

AndyClarke

prob a really simple little thing but a 'centre anchor point' button could
be handy?




Move layers so that their anchor points are in the center of the composition or view?
If so, then done. See the first tip on the "Move layers in space" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7e8ca.html> page.

silversurfer:

An intra-project search function that displays properties of every layer.




Done.
See "Search and filter in the Timeline, Project, and Effects & Presets panels" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSF6E69316-76D4-4855-848C-B8D2D03D56F7.html>.

(Plus, you can now use the shortcut FF to show instances of missing effects. See "About effects" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7c34a.html>.)

Thomas Craul:

the possibility to expand all of the effects parameters in the effect
controls window at once. just like when expanding all layer properties
or all subfolders with strg+klick (little arrow).




Done.
See "Shortcuts: showing properties in the Effect Controls panel" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS5C7CC35F-9161-4e4e-8471-A417010C2623.html>.

Pietje Bel:

I'd like to see some features I can use with my tablet (I got it for photoshop,
though I use AE even more than I use photoshop).




We've had features for using the pen dynamics with the paint tools for a while. See "Brushes and the Brushes panel" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS9CDF7691-C92A-4ab8-B570-71128109A09Da.html>.

That said, we've made some improvements under the hood that should make using a pen better (e.g., modifying the sensitivity during certain click and drag operations).

Darren McNeill:

Simple, I would like After Effects to have the ability to extrude Text
in 3d space. Nothing complicated, just be able to create 3d Text.




How about the ability to do this in Photoshop and then import the 3D object layer into After Effects?
See "Using 3D object layers from Photoshop" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS510B8F17-8644-43ce-977F-96784840A64B.html>

invisiblerabbit:

Being able to specify how many processors to use in the multiprocessing
preference pane.




Done. Plus other improvements in this area.
See "Memory & Multiprocessing preferences" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSDD65B476-971A-48e9-A5FD-D90E9A2B996E.html>.

invisiblerabbit:

I'd love a setting either in the preferences or the output module to write
project information (importantly: the name of the project) into the metadata
of the rendered file.




Done. And then some. On steroids.
See "XMP metadata in After Effects" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSE208DA8E-DC73-4567-8B88-4C48D43E6D64.html>.

Navarro Parker:

I'd love AE projects to be searchable. Having the ability to search for
comp names or source footage names within projects from the Finder would
be fantastic.




Done, as long as you have the means to search within XML files. The new XML project file format opens up a lot of scripting possibilities, too.
See "About projects" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS10B33022-CCC9-4db9-B893-4481C7A0AF44a.html>.

David Bogie:

I humbly ask the Adobe After Effects team to concentrate first on fixing
anything and everything that is broken or buggy before adding any more
complexity to this application. Make it more elgant, make it easier to
use, make it faster... sure, fine. But invest the creative energy and
geek resources to making it work flawlessly instead of adding more stuff.




Though we did add "more stuff", we also spent a lot of time polishing the application this time. The number of small tweaks to address pain points was very large.

AndyClarke:

I just don't like the help browser.




Better? After Effects CS4 Help on the Web <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/>

Laurie Hogan:

I got a simple one. Can AE have Spell Check.




AE Enhancers provides a spelling checker script <http://community.adobe.com/help/search.html?q=spell+check&lbl=aftereffects_product_adobelr>.

Laurie Hogan:

Also Can there be more integration between AE and Apple FCP.




I give a link to a script from Dale Bradshaw on the "Supported import formats" <http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSB108BC99-A69B-46c4-86D3-2192805C2AF8a.html> page (at the bottom of the page).

If all the new apps support XFL, then my life just got a lot easier. But why do I doubt Flash exports to it?

Well, I look forward to these changes. Especially not having to use the "separate XYZ" animation preset.